Ignacio Agüero was born in Santiago de Chile in 1952.
He studied architecture and film at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He made his first film, a short called No Olvidar, in a semi-clandestine way, about a massacre of peasants carried out by Pinochet's police. This film won him the Grand Prize at the Bilbao festival in 1982. Then, whilst he was making hundreds of advertising and publicity films, he directed the documentaries Como me da la gana (1985) and Cien niños esperando un tren (1988). This latter film won him the Grand Prize at the Havana festival in 1988. That same year, he was one of the directors involved in La Franja del No, a 15-minute TV programme that, over the course of 30 days, contributed to the overthrowing of Pinochet's dictatorship. During the country's period of democracy, he made other independent documentaries, which have been shown at retrospective exhibitions of his work in Lima, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Valdivia, and at numerous festivals. His film Sueños de hielo (1993) won the grand prize at the Mannhein-Heidelberg festival.
He has been the president of the Chilean Association of Documentary Film-Makers, a judge for international festivals, director and producer of TV films, supporting actor in numerous Chilean films, and lead actor in two films by Raúl Ruiz. He lectures on documentary film at the Universidad de Chile, where he also coordinates the MA in documentary film. His penultimate film, El diario de Agustín (2008), was censored by Chilean national television, although it has been shown on practically all public TV stations throughout Iberoamerica. He has run project development workshops in Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Chile. His latest film, El otro día (2012), winner of the Ibero-American Prize in Guadalajara, is participating in various international and national festivals. He has 4 children.
